


Experiment

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Voltron Oneshots [7]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra Keith (Voltron), Gen, Just Say No Kids, Post-Naxzela, Quintessence, Shiro (Voltron) Has a Clone, Torture, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 22:24:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: Keith hits the shield, and afterwards is snatched up by the Galra. He finds something important in that prison, but at great cost.





	Experiment

The whole thing had been pretty quick, pretty disorienting. He’d heard Matt scream his name, and then he closed his eyes, and then there was a huge loud awful crash and heat and pain but he wasn’t sure where from and then he was floating and then there was nothing. 

But now there was something. He could hear clanking, metal on metal, and he could feel himself being dragged (carried? Transported? Who knew). There were lights, purple lights, shining at his closed eyes insistently. And there was- holy  _ fuck  _ there was pain. 

_ Why am I still hurting if I’m dead?  _ He wondered to himself.  _ Maybe I’m in hell. _

Yeah, that would make sense. It sucked, but it would make sense. There was the ever so faint hiss of a door opening, which he thought was a little odd for hell, before he was being tossed. He hit the ground with a bang and a yell, pain sending sparks dancing across the backs of his eyelids. He didn’t dare open them, he didn’t want to know what hell looked like yet. So instead he lay still, taking deep breaths, and tried to catalogue the damage as best he could.

There were burns and cuts and bruises goddamn everywhere, which wasn’t surprising. There was the familiar burning ache every time he tried to breathe, more cracked ribs. Quite a few of them too, as if the ones he got from Kolivan weren’t enough. And if he wasn’t mistaken, his left eardrum was completely blown out. 

“Great.” he mumbled to himself. “Fantastic.” Suddenly, to his right, came a voice. A familiar one.

“Keith? Keith, is that you?”

Curious, he opened his eyes, and was only a little surprised to see himself surrounded by Galra metal. Of course, it would make sense for his hell to look like this, like a Galra prison cell. It wasn’t the smallest cell ever, with the customary shelves along the walls for people to sleep on, he supposed. The door to this cell was flush to the wall on his right, and in the center of that wall, against the floor, was a little archway covered in bars. Almost like a storm drain. That’s where the familiar voice was coming from. 

He tried to move towards it, but stopped with a barely contained scream. It hurt way too much to move anywhere. 

“Keith?!” exclaimed the familiar voice. 

“Hello?” he managed to say, craning his neck towards the bars. Maybe he could get a glimpse of their face. 

The person on the other side obligingly pressed themselves up against it, reaching a hand through the bars, trying to touch him. It took a moment to get his eyes to focus, but once he did, he heart plummeted through the floor. 

“Shiro?” 

Had he failed? Were they all dead? Were they captured? Or maybe none of it, maybe this was just a trick, something the devil cooked up to screw with his mind. 

“Keith, you’re not making any sense.” He realized he had said all of that out loud. “Can you move?”

He couldn’t before, but now he wanted to. He really wanted to. He wanted to be close to Shiro. Somehow, someway, he found himself on his back once again, except this time pushed up against the bars, holding the hand Shiro had stretched through them and staring at his face.

“Are we alive?” he asked dazedly, his voice sounding like it was coming to him through twenty layers of cotton. 

“Yes.” Shiro answered, squeezing his hand. “Yes, we’re alive.”

“How?” Keith choked. “What happened on Naxzela?”

“Naxzela? Keith, I don’t-”

Shiro jolted when the door to Keith’s cell slid open, but Keith didn’t react. Everything felt like it was underwater, moving slowly and more disconnected. The touch of the drone was dim, but the pain when he moved him certainly was not. It made his vision swim and his ears ring. He felt Shiro’s hand get pulled out of his, and he was vaguely aware of him yelling, but he couldn’t quite understand him. 

Shiro rushed to the small green window of his cell, watching anxiously as an obviously injured Keith was strapped down to the slightly inclined medical table. He tugged at the bindings half heartedly, but it clearly hurt him to do so. 

Shiro felt his fists clench, hard. God, this was absolutely his worst nightmare. Keith in Galra prison garb, strapped onto a Druid’s experiment table like a lab rat, hurting, him not able to do a single goddamned thing about it. 

He hadn’t been making any sense earlier. Why did he think he was dead? What was Naxzela? How had he gotten so beat up? 

He was broken out of his reverie by the hiss of yet another door on the other side of the room, and when the Druid entered, Shiro’s heart froze in his chest. 

_ No, no no no no no no. _

The Druid floated eerily towards where Keith lay, bound and unable to escape. For his part, Keith didn’t look at all scared. He just looked tired, as if he could fall asleep right there. The Druid stopped in front of the table, and that’s when Shiro saw the small container in its clawed hand. 

“Stop!” he cried, slamming his fist against the glass. “Get away from him!” He didn’t know what the Druid was planning, but whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. 

Predictably enough, it ignored his protests and reached out it’s other hand to Keith. He turned his head away, tried to avoid it, but he couldn’t stop it from firmly grasping his jaw. Forcefully tipping his head back, the Druid began to pour the contents of the container down Keith’s throat.

He choked and sputtered at the foul tasting green liquid, but the Druid wouldn’t relent. Some of it escaped from the corners of his mouth and dripped messily down his chin, but still the Druid did not release him until the container was empty. Then he clamped his claws over Keith’s mouth and nose, forcing him to swallow the last of it. 

It tasted overwhelmingly of copper. And it was freezing cold, the temperature unchanging as it went down his throat. He could feel the cold burn in his stomach, and there was an ache. An ache that was steadily growing worse.

“Put him back.” the Druid said to the drone, who immediately moved to obey it as it swept out of the room. Shiro rushed back to the bars on the wall, waiting anxiously for the drone to deposit the injured paladin back in his cell. 

Once again, Keith managed to pull himself over to the bars, gripping Shiro’s outstretched hand. 

“Keith, talk to me. What’s happening?”

“I don’t-” Then his entire body  _ jerked _ , and he let out a choked, pained noise. 

“Keith?!”

And then Keith was  _ wailing _ , writhing with such obvious pain Shiro couldn’t help but feel terrified. All he could do was hold on to Keith’s hand and pray to whatever god would hear him that he wouldn’t die.

After a few minutes of absolute horror, Keith’s cries began to quiet. He was still trembling, but the horrible muscle spasms seemed to have stopped. To Shiro’s amazement, some of the cuts and burns on his face had disappeared.

_ They must have been testing a healing serum. _ He thought numbly.  _ I think it still needs a few tweaks. _

“Shiro?” 

“It’s ok, Keith, everything’s ok, I’ve got you.” 

“My ribs don’t hurt anymore.” he said, sounding dazed, finally opening his eyes again. “What was that?”

“I think they must be testing some sort of healing serum or something.” Shiro answered, squeezing his hand. 

“Shiro, what… what happened on Naxzela? How are you here?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Shiro’s voice was patient, but inside he was more than a little freaked out. “I don’t know what Naxzela is. I’ve been here since the fight with Zarkon.”

“ _ What? _ ” Keith’s eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “No, that’s not possible, we found you months ago, you were back, you-”

“Keith, Keith, it’s ok.” Shiro soothed, trying to ignore his twisting stomach. How was that possible? Shiro had been here this entire time. Unless… unless that experiment… “Let’s not talk about this right now, ok? You need to rest.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Keith murmured, half to himself as his eyelids drooped. He didn’t want to fall asleep again, when he woke up Shiro might not be here, but he couldn’t help it, he was tired, the pain had wrung every last bit of energy out of him. 

“Go to sleep.” he heard Shiro say, still gripping his hand. “I’ll be here.” Less than a second later, he was out for the count.

Shiro lay there on the cold metal floor, holding onto Keith and thinking. He hadn’t been sure at the time what that experiment they did was. He’d heard the word kuron, he’d felt them poking around in his head, but that was it. Now he was starting to put two and two together, and man was he  _ pissed off _ . The Galra had tricked them, all of them, even Keith, with a clone. His eyes narrowed as he considered the possibilities. 

His mind drifted to the other paladins. If Keith was this beaten up, were the others injured as well? Of course, this could be the result of one of Keith’s reckless solo missions, and that would explain why he asked if he’d failed, but still, as long as he was in his lion he shouldn’t have been this battered.

Shiro sighed. Thinking himself in circles wasn’t going to help either of them. Once Keith woke up, he would ask him for a recap of everything that’s happened. Until then, there wasn’t much he could do.

It took some time, but eventually he coaxed himself into sleep.

* * *

 

He awoke to Keith’s hand being pulled out of his own. He immediately panicked and tried to hold on to him, but the drones were stronger and hauled Keith to his feet. He was feeling much stronger now, and tried to fight them the whole way back to the experiment table.

Shiro hastened to the window again, watching with his heart in his throat as they strapped him down again. The Druid was already waiting for him, holding a canister filled with lightly glowing quintessence. As soon as his subject was secured, he moved toward the table. 

“I remember you.” Shiro felt chills run down his spine at the Druid’s otherworldly voice. “You were the one who tried to steal from us.”

Keith glared defiantly at the Druid, pulling on his restraints. The Druid ignored him and continued, almost casually.

“I noticed your skin changed when the quintessence touched you.” It set the canister down on a tray next to the table and stood there, preparing something. It’s back was to Shiro so he couldn’t see what it was, but the look on Keith’s face told him it wasn’t good. “Human-Galra hybrids are so rare.” The Druid said, practically humming. “I am very interested in seeing what we can do with you.”

The Druid turned back towards Keith, holding some sort of IV in it’s claws. Keith flinched, a snarl curling his lip.

“Don’t.” he snapped, but the Druid ignored him. He tried to struggle, but there wasn’t much he could do when the Druid inserted it into his arm, and he hissed. Shiro watched with bated breath as the quintessence slowly snaked it’s way up the tube towards Keith’s arm. 

As soon as it touched him, Keith threw back his head and  _ howled _ . Everywhere the purple liquid touched it burned, searing underneath his skin. He clenched his fists and screwed his eyes shut, breathing through his teeth. He was too distracted by the pain to worry about what it was doing to him. 

But Shiro could see. Purple splotches were blooming across his skin, sprouting from where the quintessence touched. It continued to spread, covering his hand and working it’s way towards his shoulder. The Druid stood back, watching. The face wasn’t visible from behind the creepy mask, so Shiro had no idea if this is what he had been expecting or not. Somehow that made him feel worse.

The purple disappeared underneath the prison uniform, and then reappeared just underneath his chin. It spread up and up and up. Keith opened his mouth to cry out again, and Shiro felt his gut twist when he saw fangs. He didn’t open his eyes, which Shiro was unspeakably grateful for. The purple tinge swallowed up the rest of his face, and Shiro half expected his hair to change color, but it didn’t. Instead, two fluffy purple ears popped up, almost like bat ears.

For some reason, Shiro felt like laughing, but the urge quickly died when Keith opened his eyes. They were glowing bright Galra yellow. 

“Hmmmm…” the Druid murmured. Keith’s cries had finally died down, the canister had been emptied of its quintessence, and he looked more Galra than he ever had. A much smaller, skinnier Galra, but still Galra. “Interesting. Let’s see what happens when we put you back.”

The drones began untying Keith from the table. He didn’t fight this time, clearly exhausted by the transformation, and they tossed him back into his cell without ceremony.

Shiro started for the bars, but froze when a huge grinding sound echoed through the room. To his surprise, the wall between the two cells began to rise, receding into the ceiling. 

_ Let’s see what happens when we put you back _ .

Shiro gulped nervously. He could see Keith, kneeling on the floor and staring at his hands in horror. Shiro moved forward, ducking under the still receding wall, and reached out for him.

“No, Shiro, don’t-” Shiro ignored Keith’s protests and knelt down beside him, pulling him into his arms. He was trembling again. “Shiro, what did… Am I…”

“You’re fine.” he assured, rubbing Keith’s shoulder. “You’re fine.” 

“I’m  _ Galra _ .” he buried his head in his hands, like he was trying to hide from himself. Shiro hushed him and rubbed his back, as reassuring as he could possibly be. 

“It’s ok, Keith, it’s all going to be ok.” 

In the back of his mind, Shiro anxiously wondered why they had pulled the wall up. Did they think Keith was going to attack him? Is that something he needs to be worried about? As soon as the thought occurred, he pushed it away. Keith wouldn’t hurt him.

“You should get away from me.” he mumbled, curling in tighter on himself. “I don’t wanna hurt you.”

“You won’t.” Shiro responded confidently. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t.” said Keith miserably. Shiro just rubbed his back a little more. They sat there in silence for hours. Eventually, exhausted from the experiment, Keith fell asleep on Shiro’s shoulder. At some point, his Galra features began to recede, his ears shrinking and disappearing, his normal skin tone reappearing from the purple in splotches. The transformation back was far less painful than the initial one, and Shiro regarded Keith’s now normal face with relief. He was going to be fine. 

_ Unless they do it to him again _ .

Just as Shiro was thinking that, the door to the cell slid open and drones step inside. Shiro held Keith to him protectively with his left arm, letting his right one light up. He wasn’t going to let them take him. 

“Shiro?” Keith murmured, starting to wake up. “What’s going on?” He sat up straighter, and then immediately shrank back when he saw the drones. Just as Shiro opened his mouth to answer, the Druid floated into the cell, and before he even had time to think of a swear, he was being electrocuted.

He screamed out, forced to loosen his grip on Keith, and the drones sprang forward to grab the younger paladin. Keith fought them, and even managed to take down a couple, but there was always another to take it’s place, and eventually he was overwhelmed. The Druid didn’t release Shiro until Keith was firmly strapped down to the medical table once again.

Once he was released, he sagged to the floor, all of his muscles burning. Through the walls, he could hear Keith shouting.

“No! No no no no no, you can’t do this to me again!” Shiro managed to pull himself to his feet and to the window, in time to see the Druid hooking up another IV full of quintessence. Only this time, the canister was a little larger. 

Keith kicked and writhed in his restraints, trying to get the IV to fall out. The Druid stopped him, floating forward and gripping his neck in one clawed hand. 

“You are very loud.” he said calmly, pressing a syringe into Keith’s other arm. “This should help.” He pushed the plunger down and Keith’s movements immediately slowed. His vision was starting to blur around the edges, his body felt heavy, he couldn’t quite think. A mere moment after he had been injected, he passed out cold.

His body still jerked and spasmed in response to the quintessence, but this time there were no screams as he once again transformed into a Galra. This time his skin seemed a shade or two darker, and as the quintessence continued to flow, long claws erupted one by one from his fingertips. Shiro felt a little sick to his stomach as he watched. If they gave him too much, would he die? Would he lose himself completely? 

The Druid watched carefully as the last of the quintessence disappeared into Keith’s body. Nothing else seemed to be happening, so he nodded to the drones, who moved Keith back to the cell. 

“I would keep my distance if I were you, paladin.” The Druid advised, and then the door slid shut. Shiro hesitated for a moment, then shook his head and returned to Keith’s side. He wouldn’t let him go through this alone. 

Keith slept for some time. Shiro was practically falling asleep himself, when suddenly he sat bolt upright.

“Keith?” His head snapped to the side, eyes glowing brightly. He wasn’t slumped inwards like last time, he wasn’t cowering or trying to hide. In fact, he seemed to be doing the exact opposite. His lips parted, and Shiro could see the sharp fangs gleaming. 

“Uh… Keith?”

A low snarl rose in the back of Keith’s throat, and he began to lean forward. Shiro instinctively moved back, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Something was very, very wrong here. He was still moving forward, slowly, like a jaguar stalking it’s prey.

_ Or a lion _ , Shiro thought numbly, carefully bringing up his metal arm to shield himself. Keith reached out and dragged his claws along it, making a horrible screeching sound that sent chills down his spine. 

“Keith…” he said again, keeping his voice even and calm. One of his ears twitched, and for a moment their eyes met before he was looking away again. Shiro slowly got to his feet, and Keith mirrored him, both of them keeping their knees bent and in battle stances. “It’s me. It’s Shiro.”

Keith snarled again, louder this time, and took a step. Shiro held his ground. His confidence made Keith falter for a moment, but he just stepped to the side, starting to circle. Shiro kept his eyes pinned on him, not letting him leave his sight. 

“I know you’re in there.” he said urgently. “Wake up, Keith. You don’t want to do this.”

That made him waver again. He paused, ears flicking back. He frowned, looking confused, and Shiro made eye contact again.

They stood there for a moment, staring. Keith’s posture loosened, his ears folded back- almost like a startled cat. Then he blinked; once, twice, three times- and he stumbled backwards with a horrified sound. Shiro automatically started to move forward, but Keith held out a warning hand.

“Shiro, don’t. Don’t come near me. Please.” He continued to move back, and back, and back, until he collided with the wall in the corner of his cell and sank to the floor. He grasped the ledges on either side of him, squeezing so hard the metal groaned in protest. His eyes shone in the shadows, but they weren’t threatening anymore.

“I’m sorry, Shiro.” he gasped out, clinging to the metal. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- I’m sorry.”

Shiro lowered himself into a kneel, still keeping his distance as Keith had requested. “Don’t apologize.” he said softly. “It’s not your fault.”

“They’re going to keep doing it.” Shiro recognized the wobble in Keith’s voice, and his throat constricted. “They’re going to keep going until I hurt you.”

“I’m not going to let that happen.” Shiro soothed. “I’m going to get us out of here.”

“How?”

_ No idea. _

“That’s for me to worry about.”

Keith shrank back into his corner, obviously concerned but not wanting to argue with Shiro, who dropped from his knee into a full sitting position. Keith didn’t seem like he wanted to talk, and that was fine with him, he had to think of someway to get them out of here before the Druids tried to hurt Keith again. And before his clone could cause any permanent damage to the team. 

That thought reminded him that he still had no idea what had happened after he disappeared. He needed the intel, and maybe it would distract Keith from their current dilemma, so he asked.

“Tell me everything.” he said, “Don’t leave anything out.”

So Keith did. He told him about being the leader for that short time, all the things he did wrong, how Lotor tricked him, how Lance pulled him back. He told him about finding the clone, and welcoming him back, and the Black Lion not responding, which made Shiro smirk victoriously. It didn’t last long though, because then Keith had to explain why he had left the team, and eventually arrived at the end, when he’d crashed his ship.

Shiro was horrified. “Keith, what were you  _ thinking? _ You could have been killed!”

Keith averted his still glowing eyes. “That was the idea.” he mumbled, so quietly Shiro almost didn’t hear it. 

“ _ What?! _ ” 

Keith flinched. “There’s six paladins and five lions.” he murmured quietly. “I wasn’t going to force Allura or Lance to give up a lion. They could form Voltron fine without me, it wouldn’t matter if I died. The mission is more important than the individual.”

“Is that what the Blade taught you?” Shiro asked, barely keeping the anger out of his voice. Keith didn’t answer. He was about to give in to a lecture about self worth, when he noticed Keith’s eyes weren’t glowing as brightly as before. “I think it’s wearing off.”

Keith breathed a huge sigh of relief and loosened his white knuckled hold on the ledges. However, the relief didn’t last, as the door to the cell once again slid open. This time the Druid immediately set to holding Shiro back, making sure he couldn’t prevent the drones from removing Keith. 

_ It’s too soon _ . Shiro thought, eyeing the even larger canister of quintessence the Druid was setting up with panic.  _ He hasn’t even changed back yet. _

Peering out through the window, Shiro saw that this time the Druid was accompanied by one of the Galra scientists. 

“As you can see,” the Druid was murmuring to him, “The effects of the quintessence on hybrids is most interesting.”

The Galra took a step forward to poke at Keith’s ears, and Keith snapped at him with his still sharp fangs. 

“Perhaps the sedative.” he recommended, though he didn’t sound all that frightened.

“Only a half dose this time.” The Druid said, pressing the syringe to Keith’s arm as the boy struggled underneath him. “I want to see his reactions.”

Keith let out a weak snarl as the plunger was pressed, but despite his best efforts, his motions still slowed. The druid moved to begin setting up the IV once more, and Shiro panicked. 

“Stop!” He cried desperately, banging on the glass. The Druid ignored him, but he got the attention of the galra, and that was good enough. “It’s too much! You’ll kill him!” 

“Sir,” the galra said to the Druid, “Perhaps the other one is right. Maybe it would be wise to let the subject rest before performing another experiment.”

Shiro waited with bated breath as the Druid considered. On the table, Keith’s head lolled to the side, barely conscious. 

“We can examine him now, and wait until he transforms back before trying the larger dose.”

The Druid made a sound that sounded like an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”

The scientist stepped forward, grasping Keith’s jaw and turning his face towards him. Shiro’s hands itched at his sides, but he had to count his blessings. At least they weren’t pumping him full of more quintessence right now.

Keith blinked slowly up at the galra, the yellow in his eyes fading until there was nothing left but his normal violet. The scientist released him, and Keith let his head fall heavily back to the table. 

The scientist poked and prodded at Keith for several more minutes, observing as his Galra features slowly morphed back into human ones. 

“How fascinating.” the scientist murmured to himself as Keith finally returned to normal. “I wonder what other features the quintessence will give him.”

“Let’s find out.” said the Druid, turning back towards the table.

Shiro made his move.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes that's how I ended it cause by the time I wrote this I was gonna die if I wrote another 'escape from a galra ship' scene. So use your imaginations.


End file.
